Lawmakers Blast Guantanamo's $2.7 Million Per Prisoner Cost

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic lawmakers pushing to close the
detention center at Guantanamo Bay said on Wednesday its cost has
skyrocketed to $2.7 million per inmate this year and argued it is
too expensive to keep open while the country is fighting budget
deficits.

Smith said overall, $4.7 billion has been spent running
Guantanamo since the facility opened in 2002.

By comparison, super-maximum security prisons in
the United States spend about
$60,000 to $70,000 at most to house their inmates, analysts say.

Advocates for closure also argue that holding prisoners for years
without charge or trial is a stain on the United States. They say Guantanamo is a threat to
national security because it is a powerful recruiting tool for
militants.

"Our national security and military leaders have concluded that
the risk of keeping Guantanamo open far outweighs the risk of
closing it because the facility continues to harm our alliances
and serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists,"
Senator Richard Durbin said during
the hearing.

Obama came into office in 2009 with the goal of closing down the
Guantanamo detention center within a year. Facing stiff
opposition in Congress, he has so far
failed to do so, even though 86 of the detainees have been deemed
to pose no threat to the United
States and cleared for release.

HUNGER STRIKE

A hunger strike that has involved a majority of the inmates - and
daily force-feeding of dozens - has fueled the push to shut the
detention center.

Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate and chairman of the civil and human rights
subcommittee that held the hearing, said he and Feinstein met
with senior White House officials
last week to discuss what they are doing to transfer detainees
away from the base.

There is some Republican support, particularly in
the Senate, for closing the base.
Republican Senators John
McCain and Lindsey
Graham met with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden last week on a range of national
security issues, including Guantanamo, McCain said last week.

But congressional opponents argue that Guantanamo is an essential
tool for fighting terrorism, and fault Obama for failing to come
up with an alternative.

"Until we are presented with a good, viable strategy for what to
do with terrorists who would work night and day to murder
innocent Americans, I have a hard time seeing how it is
responsible to shut down our detention facilities and send these
individuals home," Senator Ted Cruz, the
top Republican on the subcommittee, said at the hearing.

The House voted down two amendments to the Defense Appropriations
bill on Wednesday that would have forced cutbacks at Guantanamo.
One would have prevented further detention of prisoners cleared
for release. The second sought to prevent more construction or
expansion of detainee facilities.

Republican Representative Bill
Young reflected the views of many members
of Congress as he opposed the
amendments.

"These detainees are bad, bad people. They hate America. They've sworn to kill Americans and in fact
they've done so on the battlefield. And that's why when they were
captured they were sent to Guantanamo. And that's where they
should stay," he said.